A Virtual Tour of a College Coach’s Office

College coaches are people too. They work in offices not unlike the ones where your parents work, though your parents probably don’t wear track suits to work.

Why a virtual tour of a college coach’s office? As Sir Edmund Hilary, the first person to climb Mount Everest quipped, “Because it’s there.” But there are also practical reasons to know what’s going on a college coach’s office:

• You’re going to find yourself inside of one before long, talking to coaches about why you want to be on their team. You should know what to expect.
• It’s good to know that coaches are normal people too and don’t work in a Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory-esque magical wonderland.

The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into a coach’s office is memorabilia – uniforms, balls, photos, awards, and all sorts of signed stuff. Don’t be afraid to ask about this stuff. There are few things that college coaches like talking about more than their past successes and former players. It’s a great way to break the ice in a conversation and show that you’re truly interested in the program.

Coaches’ offices are typically pretty small – a far cry from the Taj Mahal you may have expected – and are crammed with furniture and television screens. Most of them have large piles of DVDs scattered around the office, so they can review tape of past performances and scout future opponents.

And then there is the filing cabinet. (Insert Darth Vader music here.) Amazingly, for most coaches, this nondescript locker is their most prized possession. Why? It contains all of their college athletic recruiting information. Files upon files are mashed in there – some coaches keep as many as 2,000 potential recruits on file. If it sounds a bit intimidating, don’t worry, there’s a way to make the file folder with your name on it stand out from the rest. How? Make it the thickest! But that’s a topic for another day.

There are a lot of college recruiting services out there. It seems like everywhere you turn, there's someone saying they can get you onto a college team.

Here are the four questions you should ask of the college recruiting services you are considering. You can find the answers to all these questions on college recruiting services' websites:

1. Is the service's focus on "fit?" Is the college recruiting service interested in finding you any old place to play? Or is focused on helping you make the team a college that is the right fit for you academically, athletically, and socially?

2. Do they claim to do the work for you? To make a college team you have to take an active role in the recruiting process. You can't just hire someone to do it for you. You have to actively market yourself to college coaches.

3. What is their track record? What are their success stories like? Have they gotten positive reviews from credible outlets like newspapers, etc?

4. Do they make good use of technology? More and more college coaches are using the web to recruit. Do the college recruiting services you're considering take advantage of cutting-edge web technology?

Red Flags

As you evaluate different college recruiting services, you should keep an eye out for the following:

- Claims that "we do it for you." Some services justify high prices by saying they do the work for you. Here's the thing: college coaches want to hear from athletes, not recruiting services. The best college recruiting services give you good guidance on what steps you should take yourself.

- The "trusted source" for college coaches. Some services claim to be the "trusted recruiting source for thousands of colleges." Most college coaches don't use recruiting services to find athletes. Instead, coaches focus on athletes who contact the coaches directly, which is why college recruiting services that focus on teaching you how to promote yourself have more success.

A couple weeks back, we released our big study "What College Coaches Think About Recruiting." One of the most encouraging things we found is that college coaches are very concerned about players finding the right "fit" -- colleges that offer the right balance of athletics and academics.

It's great that coaches want this for athletes, but it's also in the college coach's best interest. In this episode of our radio show, we discuss why, for their own sake, college coaches want you to find the right school -- even if, in the end, it's not theirs.

Whether or not you manage to talk to the coach immediately after the game, make sure to contact him the following week. Send him a thank you email for making the effort to see you play.

Offer some analysis of the game and indicate that you are eager to move forward with recruiting and your application. Ask briefly for his impressions of your play.

Your follow-up email should be short and informal. Yet it should move your dialogue with the coach towards the critical issue of where you stand.

You've been in regular contact now with the coach for months. He's reviewed your cover letter, CaptainU profile, and video, and seen you play in person. Now you need to start figuring out if he truly foresees a role for you on his team. In other words, will he offer you a spot on his team's pre-season roster?

A college coach may hang around after the game to speak with you. If you see him from afar and he hasn't found you, walk over and introduce yourself.

Don't be intimidated or throw yourself at his feet and beg for a spot on his team. Just have a normal conversation. Offer your opinion on how the game went, ask for his, thank him for coming, and promise to be in touch.

If you go to a college camp during the summer, those college coaches are often willing to serve as references. Recommendations from other college coaches can really strengthen your campaign.

The world of college coaching is small and highly networked. Everyone knows everyone else within at least one degree of separation. This can really work in your favor if you get college coaches to say good things about you to their friends and colleagues.

How much sway do college coaches have? Can they get you admitted to a college? We run down the myths and realities of college admissions and college sports in our weekly radio show.

Have a question that you want discussed over the air? Send it to info@CaptainU.com

Note: if you have trouble listening with the widget above, give this a try.

What College Coaches Do All Day

"College coach." Sounds like a pretty simple job description, right? You coach a college team. You go to practice, go to games, go home and spend time with your kids, right? Uh, no.

Coaching a college team is a stressful, all-consuming job that involves a lot of sacrifice and time away from the family. First off, most college coaches don't get paid very much. Let's just say that the $3+ million salary Charlie Weiss gets for coaching Notre Dame is far from the norm. Most college coaches coach because they love sports, working with young athletes, and competing.

On the average day, most coaches spend some of their time on the things you'd expect: reviewing game tape, scouting other teams, and planning practice. They also have to do a lot of painful things, like sit through staff meetings, discuss the latest NCAA rules, and, of course, recruit. College coaches spend more than 50% of their time on recruiting. They literally spend more time recruiting than they do coaching.

Of course, you could argue that recruiting is great competition and provides coaches with an opportunity to work with young athletes -- but it's a far cry from what most coaches love to do, which is spend time with their teams out on the field, court, or track. They yearn for anything other than being cooped up all day, trying to find the right 5-10 players out of the 20,000 or so out there.

In fact, the number one reason people leave college coaching is because they don't like recruiting. It takes an enormous amount of time, is very unpredictable, and requires coaches to spend a lot of time away from their families.

It's rough for college coaches, but it presents you, the athlete, with a tremendous opportunity. It's really quite simple: college coaches will love you if you make their job easier.

How can you do this? By marketing yourself. By finding the colleges that are right for you as a student, socially, and as an athlete. Finding the right fit makes it much easier to market yourself to college coaches. And it also makes their job easier, because they don't have to miraculously find you among the teeming mass of athletes.

Have you watched as your friends are getting attention from college coaches and wondered, am I invisible to these guys? Or, if you've gotten some attention, have you wondered why it's from colleges you don't want to attend?

Unfortunately, this is where a ton of athletes throw up their hands and say, "I guess this isn't going to happen for me." They give up and miss out on the chance to be a college athlete. But it doesn't have to be this way. There are plenty of college coaches out there who want you.

At this very moment, there are college coaches out there who are looking for an athlete just like you. Believe me. It's true. I've been one of those college coaches. Right now, they're sitting in some office or at the kitchen table, sifting through stacks of athletes, looking at databases, trying to find the right athletes. By introducing yourself to them, you can make their lives much easier. They want to hear from you.

The key is to find the right colleges. At CaptainU, we always tell our athletes to focus on the complete college match, not just the most prestigious name or biggest scholarship. Rather it's about finding the place where the sports, academics, and social environment all match their needs and show them how to find these colleges. Once you've found these colleges and introduced yourself, you'll be well on your way to a great college career.